Ka Makou Kōnane Invitational Tournament
- Date
- Saturday, February 6, 2027
- Hours
- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Final
- Championship Match: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- Venue
- Hawaiian Hall Complex | Gallery Lawns
In partnership with Pā Kōnane, Ka Hale Hoaka, Kaʻūpūlehu Cultural Center, HawaiianCheckers.com, Akau Boards, Ke Kula o Piʻilani, and Hui Kōnane ʻo Hilo One, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum invites you to the Ka Makou Kōnane Invitational Tournament – a first of its kind in modern Hawaiʻi.
Eight contenders from across ko Hawaiʻi pae ʻāina face off in the grandeur of historic Hawaiian Hall to crown a kōnane champion. Advancing competitors from qualifying events on Kauaʻi, East Oʻahu, West Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, Hilo and Kailua-Kona, Hawaii convene in the championship tournament. Adding to the historical significance of the tournament, the final championship match will be played on a papamū kupuna in the care of the Museum’s Ethnology Collection. This board from the Kalanianaʻole-Kapiʻolani Collection had not felt stones leap across its surface in well over 100 years until the inaugural Ka Makou Kōnane Invitational Tournament in 2026. Its continued revival in this tournament is of historic significance, reconnecting our present to the living echoes of our past.
Join us for an evening of strategic competition, enlightening conversation and good fun!
Papamū Kupuna
The championship match of the kōnane tournament will be played on a historic wooden papamū from Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum’s collection. Surviving wooden papamū are rare. There are only six known examples around the world: three in Bishop Museum’s collection, one at ʻIolani Palace, one at Hawaiʻi Volcano National Park, and another in a private collection in France, which was sold at Christi’s for €150,000 in 2017.
Kōnane board, koa
Donated to Bishop Museum in 1923 by Princess Elizabeth Kahanu as a part of the Kalanianaʻole-Kapiʻolani Collection